My very first attempt at a trip report

Sound like a great day! :slight_smile:

I’m not even slightly superstitious and that would really freak me out! I’m glad your daughter was rewarded with the extra year wait.

I’m back! We are exhausted, but ROR nerves got the better of me and I did not sleep well. My family will probably never fully understand the weight I’ve placed on myself for this trip! :joy:

Day 3: 4/23: AK

Like I said, this was our first ever trip to AK and let me just say, WOW! The theming is out of this world!

I found myself overwhelmed by the scope of this park as a first-timer. I didn’t have the comfort of knowing the layout of the park as well as I did for MK. Even though I studied map after map, it did not help much once we were there, other than knowing which direction things were! We had to use the map often (not a problem).

I had been watching wait times for a few weeks leading into our trip, ran our TP with a few different start times, and ultimately decided a late start would be okay, so we headed for the bust stop around 9:45 and were at the park by 10:15 or so.

We started at the Oasis, soaked in the Tree of Life (hy amazing detail!), and waited about 30 minutes for It’s Tough to be a Bug, which we all REALLY enjoyed!

We then headed to KS and Gorilla Falls. The line for KS was incrediblyong, but it moved fast and the wait was under 30 minutes.

We then ordered lunch, me and my fam from Flame Tree and my mom and brother from Harambe’s. We had our first meltdown while eating - my kids and DH were both visibly crabby. :joy: DH was getting short with the kids, and he walked away to grab more BBQ sauce for his sandwich. This turned out to be a big, hilarious mistake. A giant white bird walked right up to his plate and snatched the top bun off of his sandwich. Me and the kids roared with laughter! Honestly, as stupid as it was, it literally wiped the craziness from everyone, even DH! Thank you bird!

After eating, we did Kali, another short-ish wait (under 20) and 3 rides on EE (the kids LOVED it). We waited about 30 minutes for Dinosaur, wandered Dinoland a bit, then headed towards Pandora.

The wait for Navi was minimal around 5:30. Less than 15 minutes. The posted wait for FOP was 55 minutes, but we were on the ride in 35!!!

I will stop right here because that ride took my breath away! Gorgeous and thrilling! Everyone in our party was enamored by the ride, and it is now both DD6 and DD8s favorite Disney ride.

Overall it was a good day, but we were immensely beaten down after. I’m wishing we’d have scheduled a 2nd AK day rather than a 2nd Epcot day, since I feel like we didn’t quite get to soak everything in. Regardless, I’m still glad we did the late start because 1. We still rode everything we wanted to ride with minimal waiting, and 2. We needed the extra sleep!

Day 4: SAB for mom and the kids, Epcot and shopping for me and DH

I won’t say a lot about thos day because we didn’t do much, but I will say our SAB cabana experience was worth every penny! I rented the cabana knowing it would mostly be my mom and brother with my kids for the day. It was perfect for them! They had a place to escape the sun, a refrigerator stocked with drinks and snacks, and a server to grab their lunches and anything else they needed.

The kids were perfect for her and they had an amazing time!

DH and I walked world showcase, then headed to DS for some kid-free shopping (can I just say how glorious it was? LOL). We went back to Epcot for dinner - La Hacienda. It was a wonderful meal!

Now I’m sitting here waiting to try for our BGs! I’ll be back to update!

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Good luck getting the BG! You were wise to sleep in when you needed to, sounds like a great day.

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Sounds like a great day! Sleeping in is my daughters plan as well so you have given me hope it will go well!!!

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Having a melt down is a classic Disney experience when your kids are little. I think we can all relate to that one. I’m glad the bird provided a way out! lol. Great experience share :slight_smile:

I agree completely. It’s now my favourite park. Try going after dark sometime. A totally different experience.

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Loving your trip report! The bird incident was classic! I’m the same way with planning and stressing-I’m nervous about ROtR and have had dreams of forgetting our touring plans or missing the 7am boarding group! We’re staying at Beach Club in about 6 weeks. How are the villas?

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I laughed for a good while over my morning coffee thinking about that thieving bird!

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I still laugh when I think about it. If you knew my DH, you’d laugh even more LOL

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Day 5: 4/25: HS

Scored BG 26 using the join, join, join method hitting the first join from main page at 6:59:59. My fingers were shaking! :joy:

We trekked from BCV to HS by foot at about 7:45 and were near the front of the lines when they let us through about 8:15. The walk wasn’t as bad as I expected. We cut through Boardwalk and around their pools. It was a nice path.

We opted for Toy Story first and were a bit let down that SDD was down but hopped on TSMM (walk on) and ASS (walk on). As our ride on on the saucers was ending, we noticed SDD was warming up and jumped into the line (we were the 4th or 5th family in line). We loaded shortly after and were in the 2nd train. We were done with Toy Story Land by 9:15. Kids were not yet ready for a snacks, so we didn’t grab the tarts from Woody’s Lunch Box (I think it’s called?) today, but will give them a try when we go back on Thursday.

I clicked to re-evaulate my TP after, because we were 30+ minutes ahead of schedule.

MFSR was listed on my TP as 30 minutes, so we hopped on. The wait was closer to 20-25 minutes. Pur BG pinged as boarding just before we boarded MFSR. The timing couldn’t have been better! We had DH and my brother pilot and the rest of us just mashed buttons and went along for the ride.

We pretty much walked through the ROtR queue. As hugebSW fans we definitely loved that experience (and MFSR as well!).

By 11, we were through the bulk of our TP, but had to kill time before DD and Oga’s. We saw dark clouds rolling in so opted for mobile order from Docking Bay 7. It wasn’t a gourmet meal by any means, but it was good and everyone devoured their food! The timing was perfect, as just as our meal pinged as ready, the sky opened up and rain poured down. Miraculously, it ended just as we were finishing our meals. :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:

We caught the Muppets, since we still had some time to kill before DD (it was fun and a nice sit down break). We also wandered Galaxy’s Edge and sid some shopping. The kids built their droids, then we went to Oga’s for drinks and a snack.

After that, I optimized my TP to see what the best course was for our remaining rides. We did ST then MMRR and were finished with both by 4. We still had ToT and the indoor coaster (the name escapes my tired brain), but we decided to call it a day!

We opted to take the Skyliner back to Epcot and walk from there, even though DH is deathly afraid of sky rides. He survived, but barely! We came to a stop just before our exit and received a message that the Skyliner was temporarily delayed. :grimacing:

Thankfully, it was only a minute or two before we started moving again.

Now we’re back at BCV and I told DH I was slipping away for a bit of quiet time, so here I am. :grin: We will finish the day with a with a mobile order dinner and a movie on the beach!!

Mom and my brother leave tomorrow - we are here til Friday, so we are just going to relax tonight and spend a late afternoon/evening at Epcot tomorrow.

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Congrats on that awesome BG!!!

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I should have added that we are avid Star Wars fans and even though GE is more focused on the new trilogy, we (I mean me and DH specifically) really enjoyed the theming and immersion. I found myself feeling similar to how I did in HP at Uni, though I will admit GE didn’t make me cry like HP did (I love, love HP and I was emotionally affected by HP in Uni in a way that defies my age LOL). I feel like they did a wonderful job with Star Wars considering how complex the SW universe is. Oga’s was awesome. The kids drinks (and the grown up drinks too) were so fun! The droid building experience was awesome too, though I had buyer’s remorse after (for buying the personality chips and backpack package). I feel like that was probably unnecessary.

OH! I genuinely had no idea that I could get my Disney Visa discount pretty much everywhere! The website says something like “select locations” and I didn’t think to ask. Turns out, almost everyone offers it if you ask! Sometimes they even ask you, which is how I found out (at BOG I believe). We’ve used it for all our large meals and any shop purchases over $50, including DD and Oga’s.

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The villas have been great! I’m sure it helps that the resort is still closed… it feels very calm at the moment. I honestly have no complaints about our resort stay so far. :heart:

We’ve had no issues getting into SAB, though we’ve mostly been in the evenings, other than arrival day (early afternoon) and Saturday when we had a cabana. Any time I was there with the kids, or DH was, we’ve been told they will let the other in even if capacity was reached in-between.

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Which drinks did you have at Oga’s and which were your favorites? We tried a couple last time and are pondering whether to stick with tried & true or venture out.

The grown ups had the fuzzy tauntaun, the jedi mind trick, and the t-16. Kids had bentham milk and carbon freeze. I sipped them all and they were all pretty good!

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Thanks! We’re getting there right when Beach Club resort reopens so I’m a little worried SAB will be crazy :frowning:

I didn’t realize we could use Disney visa for discount at DD. Is it 10%?
I wonder if Savi’s counts too!

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Loving your report! Sounds like you guys had a great day in HS!

What a great day!

It was 10%, yes!